Trial for wife accused of shooting man after casserole fight

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A woman accused of fatally shooting her husband after an argument about a burned casserole, and then taking a photo of the body and texting it to a friend has been ordered to stand trial on a homicide charge.

A district judge in Allegheny County also Friday allowed prosecutors to add an evidence-tampering charge against 38-yeaer-old Teresa Drum in the Feb. 27 death of 42-year-old Dennis Drum Sr.

A friend testified Friday at her preliminary hearing that the defendant told her on the phone that she had just killed her husband and then sent her a cellphone picture of the body.

Christina Caudill of Lexington, Kentucky, said she earlier heard the man speaking in the background, berating his wife and threatening to kill her. She said Teresa Drum then told her that she was going to kill her husband and use "purple gloves" to cover up the murder. Caudill testified that the two women have talked and texted daily for years and the couple routinely quarreled, especially while drinking.

Frazer police found the victim lying dead on a bed with a gun in his hand and a gunshot wound to the forehead. But authorities say there was no gun in his hand in the photo, which was taken 11 minutes before a 911 call was made.

Authorities said in a court documents that in an interview later with investigators, Teresa Drum said she drank seven beers and her husband was insulting her and cursing her cooking. She said they wound up in the bedroom, where her husband pulled the gun from a holster and she put her finger on the trigger and it went off, authorities said.

She told police she took a shower "to rinse off" and then put her bloody clothes in a laundry basket before calling police, authorities said. The couple's two children were in the house at the time but were unhurt, police said.